


Harlequin Girl

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Harlequin Dances [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 14:58:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never mentions she'd met him before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harlequin Girl

She never mentions she'd met him before when she's facing John Hart over a loaded gun, not with Owen across the room, and Jack right there, next to John. Not when he gives no sign he even recognizes her, even though she could tell them exactly what he looks like beneath that red jacket with her eyes closed. Down to the nasty scar around his right wrist that she isn't close enough to see, not here.

That he's been involved with Jack doesn't surprise her, and she shoves the urge to shoot John back before she reveals more than she wants the rest of them knowing. Because there will be questions, and how does she tell them she spend a deliriously wonderful week when she was barely more than a girl dancing across Europe on that bastard's arm, thinking it would last forever?

When they're back at the Hub, she confronts Jack, pointing out that John is a compulsive liar - she doesn't say he never changes, because the scar isn't there yet, and the thought that the week she met him hasn't happened for him makes her head hurt. Jack tries to reassure her, and evades her question about the Time Agency before laying on the charm with some story about coming back for her.

The ring on her finger is a surprise for him, and Jack congratulates her on her engagement to Rhys. She doesn't tell him the real reason she accepted the proposal is she learned from John that the pretty boys never stick around. Yet another lie of omission to add to the growing list of them.

The pairings she arranges are deliberate - Ianto doesn't need a chance to avoid Jack, and she wants to keep a close eye on John herself. Tosh and Owen are the two left, and she thinks that if nothing else, Tosh might start getting past her bit of a crush on Owen - Gwen can understand it, but she thinks it's more dangerous for Tosh than it was for her.

Jack worries about her, and gives her some rules that make sense to her, but she doesn't much care. She's kissed him before, she knows those lips, and she knows how intoxicating they are. How distracting. What she doesn't expect is the paralysis that spreads through her body, and she rages inside her mind against John's latest treachery. If she didn't have that week in Europe that she knows John needs to get to alive, she'd make a promise to shoot him as soon as she's able to do so again.

She's sure there has to be a way to stop the bomb from going off, but she can't risk Cardiff on her being wrong, so she races for the Rift activity where John came through this time after he cuffs them together. Going out together - it's not exactly what she had imagined when she was a girl dazzled by his charms, but she has to fight back a burst of hysterical laughter at this idea of hers. Together again, and he doesn't know her, and she's about to make sure that he can't take out her city, even as they'll die together.

Perhaps, she thinks, she'll tell him she's met him before when the bomb is about to go off, and they're in the Rift where it can't hurt anyone else. Owen and Jack's timely intervention lets her swallow those words, and hide the truth again. She's getting good at this.

Maybe too good.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ 31 August 2008.


End file.
